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drill, Battery or charger

08-13-2008, 09:23 PM

Hi I bought a 1/2 inch drill with the lithium battery about four months ago. I went to used it for the third time and it only runs for five seconds. I plugged the battery again in the charger, after 30 seconds the charger lights say that its recharged, I plug it back on the drill again and again it only works for 5 second. Is there a way to test the charger and battery?

Comment

Hi, I did and now the drill wont even move. I tried helping the drill turn with my hand and it wont move, is this normal? I have another brand drill and it turns with your hand, as a matter of facts when I started working with the drill yesterday, a strange odor came out of it. Maybe its the drill that is defective.

Comment

I/m having the same problem with 86006 li-ion 18v drill. When you put the battery on the charger it blinks green for 5 seconds then goes solid like its done. It does this for both batteries. The HD guy gave me a new charger tonight but same thing

Comment

I tried helping the drill turn with my hand and it wont move, is this normal? I have another brand drill and it turns with your hand,

Yes it is normal with keyless one handed chucks. The spindle locks so it cn be tightened with one hand. It would be impossible to tighten if it spun around. Your other drill is likely standard keyed chuck, or two handed keyless.

Hi, I did and now the drill wont even move. I tried helping the drill turn with my hand and it wont move, is this normal? I have another brand drill and it turns with your hand, as a matter of facts when I started working with the drill yesterday, a strange odor came out of it. Maybe its the drill that is defective.

Sounds like it is time to take the whole set including drill, charger and batts to an authorised Ridgid service center. They will determine if the problem is in the drill, charger or batts.
If you don't know how to locate a service center nearby, skroll to the bottom of this page and click on Ridge Tool Co. and follow the steps.
As there have been mixed reviews regarding the service experiance please let us know how things go for you........Ray.

Comment

This sounds like a problem with some NIKON Li-Ion camera batteries which NIKON refuses to do anything about. If you just put it into their charger made for the problem battery and leave it for 50 hours then it seems to be fine afterward.

How old are your tools? Do you have the sales receipt? If under 90 days try to get Home Depot to swap the whole kit for another one.

Did the battery(s) in question every really perform well? If yes, when did they go bad? How long since purchase and how much use?

If you know someone that's an electronics tech or is big into HAM radio, ask if he/she can rig up a variable DC power supply and a power resistor of correct values so as to force charge your battery at 50 - 100 mili Amperes for several hours. If he/she can do this, give it a try. Sometimes they just need a kick to get them to where in the regular charger they will accept a good charge.

Hints: 25 Volts DC minimum from power supply ... No more than 0.100 Amp charge rate ... After a few hours measure battery Voltage after disconnecting it ... It must be above the rated Voltage as marked on the battery ... If 0 or almost 0 Volts after the forced slow rate charging for a few hours, give up on that battery ... If it is at or above rated Voltage then quickly put it in your charger and leave it overnight ... If a battery is really discharged in many cases the automatic charger won't force charge it ... This is for safety reasons ... Remember to slow charge the battery ... If you or your friend don't understand the above, don't try wild things. Batteries can go KABOOM if force charged at too fast of a rate. Don't risk such happening to you.

Note to person that owns equipment: Be sure to have a diode in series with the power supply and battery to prevent reverse Voltage damage to your power supply if the battery does charge up. This is a safety measure.

Comment

Actually this sounds like the original battery issue where the battery overload protection kicks in too easily and the battery needs to be placed on the charger to be reset even though it's still fully charged. I'll bet getting a replacement set of batteries solves the problem. The problem is supposed to have been fixed long ago but some of those kits can sit at the back of the shelves at Home Depot for years before someone picks it up.

Comment

This sounds like a problem with some NIKON Li-Ion camera batteries which NIKON refuses to do anything about. If you just put it into their charger made for the problem battery and leave it for 50 hours then it seems to be fine afterward.

How old are your tools? Do you have the sales receipt? If under 90 days try to get Home Depot to swap the whole kit for another one.

Did the battery(s) in question every really perform well? If yes, when did they go bad? How long since purchase and how much use?

If you know someone that's an electronics tech or is big into HAM radio, ask if he/she can rig up a variable DC power supply and a power resistor of correct values so as to force charge your battery at 50 - 100 mili Amperes for several hours. If he/she can do this, give it a try. Sometimes they just need a kick to get them to where in the regular charger they will accept a good charge.

Hints: 25 Volts DC minimum from power supply ... No more than 0.100 Amp charge rate ... After a few hours measure battery Voltage after disconnecting it ... It must be above the rated Voltage as marked on the battery ... If 0 or almost 0 Volts after the forced slow rate charging for a few hours, give up on that battery ... If it is at or above rated Voltage then quickly put it in your charger and leave it overnight ... If a battery is really discharged in many cases the automatic charger won't force charge it ... This is for safety reasons ... Remember to slow charge the battery ... If you or your friend don't understand the above, don't try wild things. Batteries can go KABOOM if force charged at too fast of a rate. Don't risk such happening to you.

Note to person that owns equipment: Be sure to have a diode in series with the power supply and battery to prevent reverse Voltage damage to your power supply if the battery does charge up. This is a safety measure.

..........Me thinks poor old Woussko needs a eye prescription update..........Guy told us in his first post he bought drill 4 months ago.
..........told us this was the third time he used drill. Kind of guessed it worked OK the first couple. (How could he remember exact number of times he used drill over 4 months? Must be under 50 years old?)
Other than that I loved his (Woussko's) suggestion.......especially the "have a diode in series part". I did laugh out loud. I don't know why?